Google’s IPO, a decade ago this week, launched the company on a trajectory that continues to reshape its business and much of the world in its orbit.

And CEO Larry Page is determined to push even further.

Page’s vision is that Google’s products and services will become the control center of people’s lives:

The company’s driverless cars will chauffeur people around safer roads and deliver goods within hours of an online order.

People won’t even have to bother leaving their homes, which will be made more comfortable and enjoyable through the use of smart appliances.

Robots will handle tedious chores and other jobs, freeing up time for people to enjoy lives prolonged by health-management tools and disease-fighting breakthroughs engineered by Google.

Internet-connected eyewear and watches will supplement the smartphones that ensure Google is a constant companion capable of anticipating questions and desires.

Google’s big bets are fueled by Page’s belief that “… incrementalism leads to irrelevance over time, especially in technology, because change tends to be revolutionary, not evolutionary,” he wrote in May in Google’s annual letter to shareholders.

Although Page has been taking risks since he co-founded Google with Sergey Brin 1998, the stakes probably wouldn’t be as high if not for the company’s pivotal IPO on Aug. 19, 2004

Google Flat Earth Day 2014

This year, it is the merging of AI w/ Humans “for you added comfort and convenience”. Yea Righhhhhhhhhhhhhht!

In his first-ever letter to shareholders, Google CEO Sundar Pichai says the next wave of computing is all about machine learning

“Looking to the future, the next big step will be for the very concept of the ‘device’ to fade away,” wrote Pichai, who took over as CEO eight months ago. “Over time, the computer itself — whatever its form factor — will be an intelligent assistant helping you through your day. We will move from mobile first to an AI first world.”

Buzz about AI is pretty loud in Silicon Valley. Earlier this month, Facebook set up a new Applied Machine Learning group, tasked with making advancements in AI. Mark Zuckerberg’s company, along with others such as Microsoft, are investing big in chatbots, software that answers questions and performs simple tasks like making a calendar appointment for you.

Thursday’s letter is the first time Google’s update has been written by anyone besides Page and Brin, who founded the company as Stanford grad students in 1998. In 2,100 words, Pichai doubles down on the mission laid out by Page and Brin back in the day — to “organize the world’s information” — and adds to it.

“Today we are about one thing above all else: making information and knowledge available for everyone,” Pichai, 43, wrote.

Just how important is search to Google? In some cases, Pichai capitalizes the word when he writes it, like “He” or “Lord” is capitalized in the Bible. Page and Brin didn’t capitalize it in their 2004 founders’ letter when the company went public, even when referring to it as a product.

The “Body Hacking” Movement Pushes Transhumanism to Disturbing New Limits via Vigliant Citizen ( ~ ED Google glass was permanently shelved when Google-iites went into bars with the Glass and got callled “glassholes” and the name stuck. The Google glass CPU was located directly over the subjects temple to alter brain wave frequencies. Once they …